


The Ivory Prison

by Myka



Category: Original Work
Genre: Captivity, Fiction, Human Experimentation, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Science Fiction, Shifters, Spies & Secret Agents, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 04:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8697640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myka/pseuds/Myka
Summary: Gabriel didn't always have a name. Born in a mysterious facility, he knows he's not human, but an experiment with a purpose that no one is willing to reveal. His life is a routine and an hourglass of when he will disappear. He has no hopes, no dreams, until one day someone new interrupts that routine. Someone like him, someone free, and it changes everything.





	1. The Boy in the White Room

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2012.
> 
>  
> 
> **The Ivory Prison Series**
> 
>  
> 
> Part I - The Ivory Prison  
> Part 2 - The Dark Chamber

I don’t remember if I was ever human.

My life. Who I am. What I am. Everything before I was twelve is nothing but fragments. Broken memories of things I rather forget. I don’t remember much, but I remember enough to want to forget it all.

I exist trapped by white walls and the smell of bleach. A space that belongs to me and that I am not allowed to leave. This is the only home I have ever known and likely the only one I will ever know. I remember waking up here. I know I will die here.

The four marble walls are barren and whole except for one. The one with the door and the mirror. Next to the door is a little black box that controls who comes and goes. It regularly beeps, warning me when someone is about to enter, warning me to stay still and not do anything stupid.

Next to the box is a huge mirror that runs almost the entire length and height of the wall. It wasn’t always there. It appeared during the day of my eleventh birthday. I remember staring at my reflection for the first time, meeting strange emerald eyes and pulling at the dark blond strands that fell on my face. Seeing something there that resembled the men that came and went from the room. But there was always something off. Something missing that made me different.

The day I turned thirteen I woke to find the mirror gone, and in its place stood a view of the world beyond my four white walls. A glass window, I was told it was, by the man that brought me breakfast. I ignored the food, choosing instead to stare at the world beyond for the first time. My room was just a small part of a large semi-circle; there was a painted circle on the center of the floor with a symbol that I recognized from the clothing the men wore. The surrounding area was occupied by at least two dozen men looking busy. I recognized some of them as people that have come to ask me things; try and make me do things, or pull my arm to extract as much blood as they needed. But the most incredible thing about this new window was the revelation that next to me on the edge of the semicircle were two other rooms with two other boys that stared as intently as I at the world beyond. One to my right and one to my left. The one to my left touched the window tentatively as if scared it might become the mirror again. He was younger than me, a year or two, I guessed. His hair, his eyes, his skin, all looked like mine. The one on my right did not look like me, his hair was darker, his eyes lighter. He was older and he ignored the men working, fixing his gaze on me instead. I stepped back under the scrutiny, too unfamiliar with the world to know what looking at someone like that meant.

I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t the only one trapped by white walls. The knowledge brought me relief, but it also brought me pain as I looked at the older boy and realized that it would be years before I reached his age. Years I had to endure inside these four walls.

Some of the men called me Gab, but most called me G-27 or just 27. It wasn’t hard to decipher the source of this name after I saw similar numbers by the doors of my neighbors. G-26 to the right. G-28 to the left. I remember the night G-Twenty Eight waved at me and smiled for the first time. I smiled and waved back only to hear the beeping of the door and one of the men rushing in to pull me away from the window — warning me that if I ever acknowledged the others near me, the window would be taken away. I rather have a view of a silent and forbidden world than none at all.

I learned early on that letting them poke and test me was easier than being held down and gagged. They wanted something from me. Something from us. But apparently we weren't giving it to them. I spent my days doing what they asked of me, watching my education videos, taking my tests, and watching silently by the window. Sometimes I tried to talk to them, but I was always ignored, brushed off or directly told to ‘stop talking’. Yet when they were done and left my room sometimes I wished they would stay just to escape from the silence. The white walls were too quiet. The white walls didn’t respond when I said something. It was worse knowing there were others nearby — to see them, and be forbidden to talk to them.

That thirteenth year brought many new things to my limited world, but also took them away. Before the year was over the rooms next to mine, with boys that resembled me, became empty. Fear took over the monotony of my life. It became a countdown of when would I be gone as well.

Then two weeks after my fourteenth birthday, everything changed. I had just finished my breakfast and was looking out the window of my room, watching the men filter in for the day and sit at their computers. I had watched this routine so many times that just by watching the first twenty minutes, I could predict what they were planning for me that day or what concoctions they were going to inject in my body. It was a daily ritual, but this day was different.

Just ten minutes after they started their work, the main doors opened and a woman I had never seen before walked in. One of the men tried to greet her, but she waved him off and went straight toward me. I stepped back apprehensively as she stopped in front of me on the other side of the glass, staring at me with a gaze I had never experienced before. I was only familiar with the disappointed faces, the furious faces, and the unforgettable one Twenty Six gave me the day I first saw him. She looked at me for a few seconds. I saw her mouth move and a man that had been watching her carefully with unhappy eyes strode forward to stand next to her. I recognized him as the man that gave orders to the others. He answered whatever she had asked, and suddenly her calm visage became angry and furious. She started marching around the facility, her hands waving rapidly, her mouth moving constantly. The entire room of men suddenly went into a frenzy, and for the first time in my short existence, the routine didn’t happen. My door remained closed. No one came to ask me things, or try and make me do things, nor poke and prod at me. As more time passed men kept leaving the room and I was afraid. Afraid that the place beyond my white walls would become void of the people that had always been there. People that only demanded things of me, but the only people I knew. I was afraid that they would never come back and forget about me.

I watched them slowly filter away from my view. My fear materializing before my very eyes. I watched in silence as they left one by one. Despair started taking hold of me and I leaned my entire body against the glass. I am here. I wanted to scream. There were only five men left in the room. Don’t forget me here. I witnessed as the last two men walked through the main doors, leaving the space void of life, except mine. Before I knew it I was pacing around my room, panic slowly setting in. Perhaps… Had I been abandoned?

Just when my breath hitched the door of my room beeped and opened. The woman I had never seen before stepped in and looked around. Her eyes burrowed, her lips frowned, she seemed upset and I wondered if it was something I had done. Something to make me disposable like the others had been.

“My name is Dr. Mercier. I’m taking charge of this facility from today on.” She extended her hand to me sideways and I stared at it. Her voice startled me. I had heard female’s voices from recordings or video, but this was the first time hearing it for real. It sounded gentler than I had imagined.  “What’s your name?” she asked as she lowered her hand.

I swallowed, unsure of my rarely used voice. “G-27,” I answered, and her frown deepened.

“That’s your ID, what name did they give you?”

I wasn’t entirely sure what she was asking. I felt my eyebrows come lower in confusion. “Sometimes they just call me Twenty-Seven or Gab.”

“Gabe?”

“No. Just the three letters.” I held up three fingers.

“They never gave you a name?” She sounded offended.

“I thought G-27 was my name.” I felt a tad less nervous. Her voice, while direct, held something very comforting. Like my answers mattered to her, and not in the way my answers mattered when the men were recording data. But in a way I had never felt before. Was my name really that important?

“I'd rather call you Gab,” She scoffed.

I nodded. “I’m fine with that.”

“Gab.” She rolled the name off her tongue. “No. Gabe. Gabriel! Gabriel — that will be your name.”

I nodded because I didn’t know what to say. Suddenly I had a name. A name. “Gabriel,” I whispered to myself. The name sounding pleasant. I wasn’t a number.

Dr. Mercier strode inside my room, tips of her fingers on her chin. “This rooms needs some color, we should fix that tomorrow. You’ve lived here your entire life, right, Gabriel?”

I nodded when I was unable to say the word yes. I was still in awe that she was talking to me. Talking like I saw the men talk amongst each other. Talk the way they didn’t talk to me.

 “Care to show me around?” She passed her keycard through the device next to my door and it opened. She stepped outside the threshold and beckoned me to follow. That’s when panic set in. Not because I wasn’t sure of my ability to show her around what I saw every day, but because the only times G-Twenty Eight and G-Twenty Six ever left their rooms was to never return.

“What’s wrong, Gabriel?”

I froze where I stood, the fear rolling through me. I shook my head. “Please. I don’t want to leave like the others. I’ll be good. I’ll do better. Please.”

“Hey hey,” She raised her hand towards me. “You are not going anywhere.”

I shook my head again. She was trying to trick me. She was trying to get rid of me. I saw her eyeing the bright red button hidden just on the side of the device, and I instinctively snatched her wrist stopping her. “Please!” I squeezed too hard, careless with my own strength. She moaned in pain and it startled me long enough to release her, and without a moment’s hesitation she pushed the red button.

The noise was overwhelming. I covered my ears trying to block it out, but it pounded inside my head. I waited for them to come for me; to storm through my door and hold me down. To push a needle inside my body. Like they did with G-26, G-28, and likely all the others before me. I waited to be erased. And come they did. Two men in white coats with hands I could not escape. The first one grabbed my left arm and tossed me to the floor. The second threw himself over me, pressing me against the white tile, holding me prisoner with his weight. He was at least three times my size, but all I wanted was to be free and somehow I pushed him off. I sat up, and when the other guard came at me I lashed out to stop him, the back of my hand snapping his nose. Blood gushed from his face, smearing my hand. I stared at it in shock.

When I felt the pinch of a needle, I screamed and fought just like the others did. I remembered G-26’s fight, how they needed four men to hold him down, and how one of them pressed his knee against 26’s neck until it snapped from the pressure. I watched it happen with my forehead pressed against the glass, wished the entire time 26 would just stop fighting them, because what was the point? They always won. We always lost. And I would never feel his gaze on me again.

Lying here on the floor, feeling the poison spreading through my veins, I finally understood. It was life. 26just wanted to live. They all did. I gasped when the men let go of me, the fight gone out of me. I had lost too.

I collapsed on the ground, the white walls spinning around me. Waiting for it to end, I wondered if I would be the last to exist inside these four walls, or if this would be the fate of those that came after me as well. Those destined to be born inside this prison of ivory. I looked at the men, then at Dr. Mercier. She only had sorrow in her eyes for me. I turned away, then I was just gone.


	2. The Boy Behind the Glass

I almost didn’t believe reality when I opened my eyes and found myself still in my room and breathing. I barely moved my head so I could look around. There was nobody with me, but there were clear signs someone had been in my space. I sat up slowly and counted how many things were out of place, or more accurately, what things were there that had never been before. There was a blue round and padded chair on the far end of my room in place of the cold metal chair they made me sit on when I had to watch an education video. A few feet from it was a larger and newer video screen. There were other trinkets scattered on the floor I did not recognize, weirdest of them all was the line of buckets in a row next to the wall. I could have spent the entire day investigating these strange new things, but my attention was concentrated on one spot in my room. One that was more important than any of the new things that suddenly appeared. The door that had been closed all my life. It was wide open.

I did not dare get close to the door, fearing it was some sort of trap. So I walked to the window and tried to figure out what was going on. The men looked busy, but not their usual — staring at the monitors, or mixing new medical cocktails busy. They were moving stuff, changing stuff. To my left, the walls of 28's old room were gone. Men came and went taking chunks of it away. The room to my right, 26’s old room, still had its wall, but its door was also wide open and people were doing stuff in there too. In the middle of it all stood Dr. Mercier. She had a small digital pad in her hands and seemed to be directing the chaos. Three people were with her; two men that nodded after every other word she said and a boy.

The boy’s back was towards me and all I could see was his hair. But suddenly his shoulders stiffened and he slowly turned around and saw me. My chest tightened when his eyes found mine, but not in a bad way. It was more like a force was pulling me. Different. Yet similar to when I had first seen my neighbors that day over a year before.

I stood in front of the glass window and watched as the boy said something to Dr. Mercier. She looked up to see me awake, nodded, and the boy made his way towards me. He stopped right in front of me, the glass the only thing between us. His skin looked just like mine, but his hair was raven versus my light, his eyes a somber azure versus my vibrant green. No one needed to tell me that this boy was just like me. Not human. And he was outside. He was free.

I remembered the open door. Maybe I was free now too.

I met his eyes and held them, watching the little flinches play across his face as he watched me. He placed his palm against the glass and I pressed my own hand against his, matching finger to finger. He ran his palm across the glass and I followed every movement, frame by frame.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

I stared, dumbfounded. No one had ever asked for my permission to come in. They just did.

“It’s open,” I said when I found my voice, and he gave me a lopsided smile before walking over to the door.

He peeked his head in, first glancing around before walking in. He stopped in front of me and offered his hand, “I’m Lukas. I’m going to move to that room over there.” He pointed to 26’s old room where men in uniforms shuffled things around.

I stared at his hand longer than I should have before sliding my fingers against his palm. "You are like me.”

He scuffed, let go of my hand and walked over to the blue chair where he sat down.

“At least you know you are different, that’s a good start. Mom was worried you would be confused and disoriented.”

“Mom?”

He pointed to Dr. Mercier. “She’s my mother.”

“You have a mother?”

Lukas didn’t seem willing to answer that. He stood and walked over the line of buckets by the wall. “What color do you want to paint your room?”

“Is that what that is?” I felt instantly comfortable with him, just because I knew he was like me. I wasn’t even thinking about the open door anymore. I stood next to him and checked each of the buckets. The different colors were displayed on the side. A pale green one caught my eye and I pointed to it.

“Interesting,” Lukas commented. “I picked the same one.”

That made me smile. Someone knocked. “Can I come in?”

Dr. Mercier was at the door and panic instantly rolled over me. Lukas must have seen me stiffen, because he put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s ok,” he said. “She’s not going to hurt you. We are not going to hurt you.”

I wanted to believe him so much, but he wasn’t the first one to make me that promise. The fear was still there, subdued, but there. They hadn’t tried to take me out of the room. Dr. Mercier gave a slow nod and walked away.

“We could leave you know,” Lukas spoke out. I turned to look at him. “The door’s open.”

“Leave where?”

“This room,” Lukas started touching the large screen on the desk. It reacted to his touch by displaying things. “When was the last time you stepped out of it?”

I stared because he had to be trying to ruse me. He was like me. Didn’t he spend his life in a room as well?

“Never,” I answered. Lukas stopped fidgeting with the screen. His eyes flew to mine.

“Never?” He repeated and his face sunk into some sort of horror that just made me feel wrong. Like it had been my fault that the only world I knew was among these four walls. Without saying another word Lukas turned off the screen. “No ICC then. I think I saw a park on the way here. Let’s go there.”

Park? ICC? Those words meant nothing to me, but they seemed to mean something to Lukas. Something good. He stood just on the threshold of the open door and nudged me forward. I stayed put so he closed the distance between us in three quick strides and took my hand. “We’re getting out of this room okay? And if you want, you never have to come back to it ever again. I’ll talk to my mom. We can be roommates.” My fear decreased with his words and for the first time I thought I could leave this room and continue living.

“I can come back then?” I asked.

Lukas nodded and gave my hand a little pull. “We’ll go to the park. Have some fun. Then come back.”

I stared at the open doorway and took a deep breath. I gave one step forward, then another. Slowly I made my way forward to the door, lingering at every moment of doubt. Lukas never let go of my hand. When I stopped, he stopped with me and waited until I was ready to try again. When I finally gave that step that went beyond any other step I had ever taken, Lukas cheered, patted me on the back, and gave me a smile I would never forget.


	3. Life in the Bubble

I wake up. Warmth spreading through my body, the leftovers of a smile still on my face as I remember that day. The day I met Lukas is still the happiest day of my life. It was the day my life went from pointless to enjoyable. I remember Lukas trying to get me out of the facility the same way he had come in, only to be stopped by security clearance. It took almost a year to get that lifted for me, but eventually the outside world became less of a mystery and more a part of my life. I actually got to enjoy the few years that were left of my childhood.

My thirteenth birthday took place outside the facility, under the sun with Lukas and Dr. Mercier, whom I had grown fond of and now trusted as much as I did Lukas. Moments like that filled me with happiness I had never known, but also resentment when I compared it to my life before.

Between the moments of mundane the truth still remained. I wasn’t really human. I wasn’t really free. The days I spent outside the facility and its ivory walls where far and few. Every day I had a schedule. Wake up. Breakfast. Two hours of studying. Two hours of training. Lunch. Another hour of studying, wrapped up with an hour of medical. Which was just a pretense really, for them to make me achieve what I was created to do.

Created for something I couldn’t do.

After years of silent observation it didn't take me much to realize that I had a purpose. Yet no one seemed inclined to tell me what it was. Or why I wasn't allowed to know it.

The man and woman that composed the medical staff rarely talked to me. They smiled, they were polite. But they came in with their pads and medicines and followed a routine I was bored of. “Did you feel anything?” they would ask after injecting me with something. I never felt anything.

A month after I turned fifteen I finally got some answers. Dr. Mercier stopped the medical staff after they left my room. It was far enough that they didn't expect to be overheard, but I could hear everything they said.

“Any improvement?” Dr. Mercier started the conversation.

The man glanced at his digital pad. “Every test we do has the same result. His biology is identical to NB1’s, but he’s not reacting to the doses. If the problem is not physical then it must be psychological or environmental.”

“No surprise there with the way that child was living. No wonder this project was full of failures. Raising children on fear and isolation then getting rid of them when the costs were too high?” Dr. Mercier rubbed the bridge of her nose with her fingers.

The man brought forward another slide on his pad. "At this rate we are not sure if we can make the deadline.”

“Just keep working. I’ll worry about the deadline.”

“With all due respect," the woman looked at Dr. Mercier. "Psychological problems can take years to resolve if at all. I have observed his progress at your request, given him time to adapt and improve, but I see little change from one year ago. Whatever psychological damage was done, it is likely permanent."

"Speak clearly, Dr. Zeyas." Dr. Mercier demanded, her tone harsher.

Dr. Zeyas didn't even bat an eye. "It would be my official recommendation to terminate G-27 and concentrate on new G.A.B’s now that we know the perfect genetic formula and environmental conditions necessary.”

I hid behind the wall of my room. The fear I hadn't felt in almost a year reignited like a wildfire. I was really still nothing but a thing in their eyes. Something made for a purpose. A failure. I wondered if this is what happened to 26 and 28. Had they been deemed useless and thus terminated? 28, who dared to smile and wave at me again even after we had been warned not to. How that night I was woken by a scream, and he was gone the next morning. 26, who fought them until they killed him. How was I going to go?

Dr. Mercier didn't react to Dr. Zeyas’ words. Instead, she wordlessly reached for Dr. Zeyas’ digital pad and took it from her hands. "I appreciate your input Dr. Zeyas," she said calmly. "When you clock out today please return your security clearance to the guards. You are dismissed."

Dr. Zeyas seemed calm, but I could tell from her body language that she was angry. I thought for sure she was going to add a comment to her dismissal, but she just nodded at Dr. Mercier and walked away.

I sat crouched behind the wall, pulled my legs to my chest and held tight. I don't know how long I was there ignoring my studies, but soon I felt a familiar presence in my room. "I knew you were getting stronger," Dr. Mercier said. She stroked the top of my head with affection, just like I saw her do to Lukas on occasion. It was comforting. "Don't be afraid about what she said. You are not going anywhere."

"What about the deadline?" I asked, keeping my head hidden in my arms. She stalled. I tried not to pale. Dr. Mercier may be the boss of my surroundings, but I wasn't naive enough to believe she didn't have people to answer to. People that now I knew for sure wanted me to achieve something. My life had a deadline.

"Just tell me what I am supposed to be doing." My voice sounded alien, even to my own ears. "I admit I have been getting stronger. I can hear things clearer and from far away. I didn't mean to hide I could do it." Dr. Mercier didn't respond right away so I raised my face from my arms and spared her a glance. She was looking at me thoughtfully, almost kindly.

"We could risk showing you. But it will likely frighten you."

I took a deep breath. I saw my future as two choices. One, I wait to see what happened. Wait to see if I achieved what they wanted without knowing what it was, and risk disappearing into the night like I never existed. Or two, learn what I was meant to do and try to achieve it. It was an easy choice.

I shook off what was left of my fear and stood up. Dr. Mercier looked at me like she knew what I was going to say. I nodded. "Show me."


	4. The Real Me

When Lukas arrived an hour later from his outdoor training, a team of medical staff was waiting for him. His smile and pleasantry from being outside the facility quickly faded when he saw them. "Today?" he scoffed and walked ahead of the medical staff to the main medical room where I was waiting.

Lukas stepped in and took off his sweaty clothes without hesitation and without looking at his surroundings. He grabbed the pair of shorts one of the staff handed to him and just when he was about to put them on, he turned and finally noticed me. His eyes went wide with surprise. "Gabriel," his voice stammered and he rushed to put on the shorts. "What are you-" He turned to one of staff, "What is he doing here?"

"Dr. Mercier ordered him to be here."

"No." Lukas shook his head. "That is not a good idea."

His refusal only made me more intent to discover this secret. "I want to be here." I raised my voice so it could reach over the discussion Lukas was having with the staff.

Lukas' blue eyes met mine and I tried to smile, reassuring him that I was fine. He shook his head, "Gabe." The shorten version of my name rarely left his lips, but it warmed me every time I heard it.

"I want to know what I am supposed to do." I closed the ten steps separating me from Lukas. The staff went to the other side to the room to prepare. "I will be ok."

"What if you aren't?" Concern infiltrated his voice. "It's not pretty, nor pleasant."

"I don't know what it even is."

Lukas seemed to think over his options. "I don't know if it is better to explain it to you or just show you," he whispered, wary of our audience.

I didn't know how to answer that, and I didn't have to because one of the staff took my arm and pulled me away to stand by a corner. The rest of the staff surrounded Lukas, attaching padded circles and wires to his skin. Dr. Mercier walked inside the room when they were almost finished and pressed the code that would lock the door.

Lukas turned to his mother and his mouth opened, but before he could protest she raised a finger to quiet him. Lukas kept silent and Dr. Mercier reached my side. "Let's begin," she ordered. The staff nodded. The two men went one each to Luka's sides. One of the women stayed by the devices ready to record whatever information came out of them, and the other grabbed a vile of red liquid and handed it to Lukas.

"Male. Thirty seven years of age. Subject NB1. Test number 71."

Lukas grimaced slightly as he took the vial in his hand. Each of the men held his upper arms securely, and without hesitation, Lukas downed the liquid completely.

The woman grabbed the vial back from his hand and quickly walked back to her position next to the other female. I watched this entire process in silence, trying to decipher what each little thing meant. Why was it relevant? I couldn't think of anything.

Lukas kept his eyes shut tightly, his breath becoming heavier by the second. He shook suddenly, his body seemed to convulse, and the men held him tighter.

"Lukas!" The cry left my throat unbidden. Dr. Mercier was next to me in a heartbeat and held me back by my shoulders.

"This is normal," she said reassuringly. I wanted to believe her – more than I ever remember wanting anything - but Lukas's face twisted in such pain that it took every inch of me not to run to him. I stared wide eyed and in shock as Luka's face, his shoulders, almost every inch of him rippled unnaturally as he held back the urge to scream. I thought this horror show was never going to stop, but it eventually did. What was most shocking of it all was that at the end, Lukas was no longer there. In his place stood a man that looked older, with broader shoulders and finer hair. Dark rimmed eyes looked at me and I didn't see Lukas in them - just a stranger.

"How would you rate the pain?" One of the women asked Lukas, her digital pad at the ready to write down what was said.

Lukas swiped a towel across his alien forehead. "About a six," he said in a voice too deep to be his own. "Not as bad as before, but still strong."

The men released Lukas and gave him some space. They proceeded with more tests that I had no understanding of. Lukas placed his hand on a pad, something registered, his eyes were checked, and his vitals reported. I stayed silent and unmoving in my corner through all of it - lost to what I was supposed to think. It felt like an eternity, but it only lasted a few minutes. Dr. Mercier was with the medical staff taking a closer look at the data. With their attention elsewhere, Lukas made his way over to stand next to me. I tried to look at him, but averted my eyes almost instantly.

It was hard separating the fact that I knew Lukas was standing next to me, versus the fact that I didn’t see my friend in those eyes. I wanted to say something to break the uncomfortable silence, but my mind was utterly blank.

"This is what we are." Lukas finally broke the silence. His hand reached for me and I flinched. "We change, we become others."

I shook my head and one fearful thought crossed my mind - I cannot see myself ever doing what Lukas just did, and if I can't do what he does, the only fate that awaits me is certain death.


	5. Tarques

It started with Lukas giving me shifting lessons; telling me what I am supposed to feel, and how I'm supposed to react. He tried to tone down how painful the experience was, but I knew he was just trying not to scare me. Too late for that.

I started joining him on his shifting tests, and while not less pleasant than that first experience, I did get used to the process and what to expect. I started noticing things here and there. Like the fact that all the people Lukas shifted to were male, and the fact that while body types tended to change, Lukas’ height always remained the same. I also noticed that the pain decreased with each shift.

They started testing me more forcibly as well, now that I knew the true nature of my existence. Before they would just give me liquids and ask me what I felt afterwards. Now they directed me into trying to force a shift. It didn't help when they revealed that each vial they forced me to drink contained genetic material.

I wasn't happy anymore.

The lessons. The tests. All of it added to my regular training routine took a toll on me. Weeks passed and nothing worked. I was useless as a shifter. I knew that. They knew that. But no one was willing to say it out loud.

Uneasiness filled my days and I started to view my routine, and my failures, as a clock counting down to the end of my life. Lukas and Dr. Mercier were the first to notice the change in my demeanor and the first to try and ease my restlessness. But even with their attentions I sank deeper into dark thoughts and hopelessness.

Change was in the air, and it took form in the shape of a man that came into our ivory world without announcement. He was an older man, grey had completely taken over his hair, and his manner and pose spoke of a man that had not spent his life in the ways of science, but in the ways of war. Dr. Mercier went out of her way to accommodate him. She tried to show him the facility, but the man only had one interest — Lukas and I.

“Which one is this?” The man asked, looking over Lukas. We stood together side by side as the man paced around us. I had been under observation my entire life, scrutiny rarely made me uneasy, but this man made me feel like I wasn't even a living thing.

“NB1.” One of the men from the medical staff answered.

“Lukas,” Dr. Mercier corrected. “Next to him is Gabriel.”

“ID Number?”

“GAB-27.”

The man glanced at me, something in the way he looked at me had changed, like something about me unsettled him. I felt Dr. Mercier’s touch gently on my upper back. “But we don’t call him that anymore,” she said.

A flicker of anger passed over the man’s eyes. “I thought the GAB line had been terminated almost a year ago.”

“He’s the last one.” Dr. Mercier was visibly unpleased with the conversation, but she hid it well, keeping her professional composure intact.

“Can he shift?”

“Not yet. We have been testing extensively and—”

“Why is he still active if he can’t shift?”

Dr. Mercier demanded one of the digital pads from the staff and brought forth some records. “His medical tests show he has an 87% probability of successfully shifting.”

“Today. Can he shift today? Has he ever shifted at all?”

Dr. Mercier pulled the digital pad close to her chest. “No.”

The man spared a glance towards where Lukas and I stood obediently. It had been the first time since the conversation started that he looked at us with something worse than objectivity. Like I was a bug to be crushed.

I kept my body as still as I could while he passed his sentence. “He can’t shift. Follow the orders that were given a year ago. Terminate him. Tonight.”


	6. Echoes

I hid in the bowels of the washing room, behind the glass of one of the showers, curling myself into a ball of flesh trapped in a corner. The tiles beneath were cold, and dry. Somewhere a single drop of water fell and echoed through the space. I don’t remember exactly how I got there, or much of what happened after the man I now knew was a General called Tarques, ordered my death like it was nothing. The countdown had ended.

Lukas found me there. At first he didn’t say anything and I didn’t even bother to look at him. The drop echoed again. He kneeled next to me without saying a word and his fingers tried to ease my sorrow, pressing gentle caresses against my cheeks. “You are going to be late for your test,” he reminded me, trying to pull me into compliance.

I shook my head. “There’s no point. I can’t do it. I won’t be able to do it. They will just drag me away and I’ll never come back.”

Lukas’s touch stopped being gentle, his fingers firm and sure against my skin. “You have to stop saying you can’t do it. You’ve seen the data. There is very little difference between what makes me me and what makes you you. You can do this.” He rested his forehead against the side of my head, his knuckles brushing my cheek harder.

I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, moving my head until our foreheads grazed. Lukas sighed. My eyes opened in wonder. All this time I had thought it was me that needed to see Lukas every day to have something to look forward to. He was the only person to make this ivory prison I existed in — home. But with the feel of his forehead on mine, his breath gentle against my face, I realized that he may need me just as much I needed him. After all, it was just the two of us that stood apart from everyone else. The only ones who understood each other in ways that human’s never would.

“Please try, Gabe. Don’t leave me alone with them,” Lukas whispered and the words shook me to the core. I couldn’t give up. Not before I had tried until the very end. If I didn’t succeed in shifting in the next hour I would be taken out to be erased. But if I shifted — if I succeeded — I could stay with Lukas. How could I not try?


	7. Failure

Dr. Mercier was very gentle as she pasted the sticky sensor pads over my body. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears and I tried to smile for her sake. Unlike the other times, Lukas was not allowed to be present. Instead of letting that fact cripple me, I used it to my advantage, telling myself that if I shifted I could see Lukas again.

Dr. Mercier nodded that everything was ready. I held the vial in my hands and downed the liquid in one gulp. Opening my body and my senses just like Lukas had taught me, I searched for that hint of fire I could grab onto and exploit. I took deep, even breaths; my eyes closed tight. Searching for it. Waiting for it. But – nothing. I didn’t feel a thing. Just like all the other times. I had failed.

Sorrow quickly replaced my determination. My soul cried with the knowledge that not only was I going to die very soon, but that it was very likely that Lukas’s fingers against my cheeks less than an hour ago — that lingering memory still warming me - were the last touches I would ever receive from him.

“A failure.”

I snapped my head up to see General Tarques inside the room.

Dr. Mercier seemed startled. “One more week. I guarantee you he will shift.”

“You’ve been given too many of those already. You allowed yourself to get emotionally attached. That is the only reason he has not been terminated.”

“He is a boy. Not a thing." Dr. Mercier lost her composure then, knowing her words were a grave misstep in the presence of this man.

Without preamble General Tarques made his way next to me, grabbed my arm and pulled me off the medical table, snapping the sensors away from my body.

“General Tarques!" Dr. Mercier raised her voice, following us with hasty steps. "At least let Lukas say goodbye to him. They are good friends.”

“This isn’t a place for friendship. It's a place to create weapons. It’s time you learned that lesson and your son as well."

"Sir!"

The increase of noise caused a ripple across the staff, each immediately stopping their work to look at the source of the disturbance. General Tarques dragged me by force to the center of the facility where everyone could see and tossed me to the ground next to the painted symbol on the floor. I immediately tried to rise back up but froze when I heard the cock of a gun. I raised my eyes slowly, carefully, to see General Tarques pointing the weapon directly at me.

He was going to shoot me in front of everyone? I tried to breath and turned my eyes toward Lukas's room. He was just past his door, his body shaking.

Three things happened then. General Tarques squeezed the trigger. I moved. Lukas ran.

I felt the bullet go through my right shoulder and pain exploded all over my body. I couldn't see the world in front of me clearly anymore, only a blurry twisted version of it. Someone was screaming — it was me.

Firm hands surrounded me, holding me tightly. Lukas’ breath fell on my ear, his voice the only thing that was real in this world of pain. "Let it flow," he whispered, his voice hidden behind my screams. Only mine to hear. "Let it consume you. It will be okay. I am not letting you go."

The pain seemed endless and unwavering. One that I wouldn't wish even to the man who shot me. I felt my body doing unnatural things. My skin stretching, my bones moving. The only thing to carry me through it all was Lukas's arms, the feel of his body against mine. I knew that without him, the pain would be worse.

My breath felt torn from me, and my heartbeat thumped loudly against my chest. My shoulder burned with pain, and I could feel the blood pouring out of me. Then I felt something very odd. My own body snapped into place, and the pain suddenly subsided. The world around me slowly stabilized. I started to feel the oddness of having a body that was not my own.

"See," General Tarques put his gun back on its holster. "The boy just needed some motivation." Lukas glared at him, uncaring that the General saw his anger. General Tarques didn’t seem to care. He just looked down at us, and for a brief second I saw his mouth form into a thin grin of amusement that vanished as quickly as it appeared. "Start the field training," he demanded. "I want them ready within the year."

After the General left, I felt that I could finally breathe. Lukas held on to me, and when the medical staff came over to tend to me I realized I was holding on to him too.

"Go get the gurney," Dr. Mercier ordered and the medics left. "Everyone back to work." Pale faces slowly returned to their computers and tables while we waited for the medics to return. For that minute it was just the three of us.

"Did you feel it?" Lukas whispered in my ear and I nodded. His arms held me closer, his voice becoming low and secret. "I helped him shift," he revealed to Dr. Mercier, and she gave him the briefest of nods as acknowledgement. The medics returned and gently put me on the gurney. I didn't want to let go of Lukas, but I knew I had to. His fingers curled around mine and I felt the wetness of the blood that flowed down my arm. As they took me away our fingers started to slip apart, but Lukas held on until my mind drifted to nothingness.


	8. Promise

When I woke up I was not alone.

I was back in my room, the lights dimmed down, and I could see the bright green light of the door device blinking.

"How does your shoulder feel?" Lukas asked. He had dragged the blue chair next to my bed.

"Hurts," I answered. "Am I me?"

"Yeah," Lukas smiled. He stood slowly and pulled the covers down. "Scoot over," he said, and I obeyed without questioning. We laid side by side, his fingers hovering over my bandaged shoulder but not touching.

"Thank you for saving me," I said and met his eyes. "Do you think next time I will be able to do it alone?"

"Absolutely," he reassured me. "The first time is the hardest and the most painful, after that it gets easier."

We fell into comfortable silence. I was content just to know that Lukas was with me; to feel his presence next to me. I realized then that he was the most important thing to me. The one thing I didn’t ever want to live without. The tips of his fingers grazed my bandaged gently, then slowly connected against my neck and travelled across the side of my face, ending on my temple.

“I saw it you know,” he said. “He was aiming right here.” Lukas rubbed his thumb against my forehead.

“You ran to save me,” I leaned towards the touch, wanting more of it.

He shook his head. “I knew I wasn’t fast enough. I was going to be too late to save you, but I was going to be right there to snap his neck.” He growled the last word.

“Lukas,” I reached and grabbed his free hand, intertwining our fingers. “That would have been pointless.”

He shook his head again. “Not to me. I know I tend to not say much and I have no problem giving them what they demand of me. Sit where they tell me to sit. Run where they tell me to run. I never demand anything from them, but in return I get to be with you.”

Suddenly I was very conscious of the places where his skin touched mine. I squeezed our hands tighter and leaned my forehead against his. A smile spread across my lips and for the first time in my life I understood the meaning of being happy.

I let Lukas know. “I want to be with you too.”

His quiet laugh was contagious. Without warning his lips pressed against my forehead and that innocent display of affection changed my world.

Lukas wasn’t just the boy that saved my life and showed me the outside world for the first time. He wasn’t just my only friend and the one who understood me like no one else ever would. He was more than that. My most important thing, he was everything that made this place bearable and I could no longer see my life without him.

I tried to push away this realization. I knew it was dangerous to depend life on a single thing. What would I do if they took him away?

I hid my fears behind a smile. “What happens now?” I asked before a yawn escaped my lips.

Lukas stole my yawn and held me close in a place between awake and sleep. My eyelids felt heavier and I could feel Lukas’s heartbeat and hear his words just before I fell asleep, his voice sounded far, far away. They were words that spoke the truth of my future. The fate I could not escape. Words that will haunt my dreams, but also made me a promise. A promise I could hold on to. A promise to carry me when it got dark.

“We train like they want us to. Shift into the people they want us to be. Become the weapons they want… and we never let them tear us apart.”


End file.
